W-P-L-J

(Luther McDaniels-Ray Dobard)

FZ album(s) in which song has appeared

Tour(s) on which song is known to have been performed (main source: FZShows, v. 7.1)

Comments

Foggy G, "The Songs That Were Played," We're Only In It For The Touring

1984: Essentially played as on "Does Humor Belong in Music?"

The 4 Deuces:

From the liner notes of Music City Records—California Doo Wop Sound and R&B from the Bay Area (1954-61) Volume 2 (Earth Angel JD-907) (Thanks to G@ry R. Del Carlo for the information and for the picture):

The 4 Deuces

Sharing the Rovers' "Ichi-Bon Tami Dachi" session in late '54 was a quartet from the Salinas area called the 4 Deuces, who like-wise enjoyed popular success but received no money. Of the two songs the 4 Deuces recorded that day, Dobard only released one: "W-P-L-J", a paean to white port mixed with lemon juice. The record sold very well, probably several hundred thousand copies at least, and the Italian Swiss Colony wine company—which offered a yellow vinyl copy of "W-P-L-J", free with every bottle of white port—rerecorded the song as an advertising jingle. But as one group member, Luther McDaniels, later put it, "My name was on (that song) with Dobard's, but he had registered it in his own name...I didn't get a cent from "W-P-L-J."

The 4 Deuces returned to Berkeley the following year and cut two more sides for Music City: DOWN IT WENT and THE GOOSE IS GONE. But by then the group was falling apart. McDaniels remembers; "The group was in the Army (at Fort Ord) when we cut "W-P-L-J", but the guys started getting out and going their own ways". McDaniels continued to record for Dobard as "Lord Luther", but the 4 Deuces no longer existed by the time their final record came out; the inclusion of both sides here ("The Goose Is Gone" and "Down It Went") completes their output until Dobard decides to issue their remaining unreleased number.

Here are the members of the 4 Deuces:

Jim Dunbar (1st tenor)
Luther McDaniels (2nd tenor)
Orvis Lee Teamer (baritone)
Henry Shufford (bass)

 

Conceptual Continuity

 

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